


you can feel it on the way home

by defcontwo



Series: the new romantics [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Gen, Past Drug Use, Past Relationship(s), Post Parse III
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 17:37:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3455939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack’s never been much of a talker and he’s done more than enough baring his soul to last anyone a lifetime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can feel it on the way home

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Ngozi for creating this beautiful world that I can't get enough of and to Ki for looking this over for me/holding my hand through my neurosis.

The car-ride to Logan settles Jack more than he expected it to -- he hugs Shitty goodbye and slings his duffle over his shoulder and gets lost in the crowd, and it’s easy, then, when he’s surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people heading home for the holidays, to remember that there’s more to this world than the tension in his shoulders and the tightness that’s been living inside his chest ever since the EpiKegster. 

There’s something strangely soothing about the process of travel -- something could go wrong, sure, a flight could get canceled or ice on the tarmac could cause a delay but at the end of the day, none of it’s on him.

Nothing goes wrong today, though, and he gets to his gate with a just few minutes to spare. It gives Jack just enough time to find himself a corner to make a quick phone call. He’s been gearing himself up for this, talking himself into the necessity of it and his fingers thumb out the number before he can tell himself not to, but he’s gotten better at this over the years, about knowing when all hesitance aside, he just needs to flat out schedule an appointment with his therapist. Appointment made, Jack turns his phone off and slips it into his pocket before boarding the plane, allowing the jostle of take-off to lull him into a shallow, restless sleep. 

The whole way through, he only thinks of Kent twice. 

It’s a new record for the week.

.

“Good luck with the ‘rents, bro,” Shitty had said, with a bracing hug and a shared grimace because for Shitty, home for the holidays only means one thing: a loss of self. A place where he steps inside a building and stops being Shitty, the righteous, hockey-playing gender studies major and has to become B. Knight, with every trapping and lie that goes along with it.

It’s not the same for Jack, though, not really. The thing about rehab is, it’s a lot of fucking talking and the thing they keep telling you over and over again is, if you want this to work, if you want to make this getting better thing stick, you have to be honest. 

You have to look yourself in the eye and say, this is it, these are the things that fucked me up and if you’re brave enough, you have to take those demons and turn them outwards -- you have to share them with someone if you can. 

A couple of family-wide therapy sessions later and everything more or less came out in the wash. 

Everything was bared down to the base facts, of course -- there’s a line to how much you can share with your parents and talking about the time you fucked your ex-best friend at a house party in the middle of nowhere when you were both high on so many different kinds of something goes pretty far past that line. But in the abstract -- the drugs, yeah. Kent, yeah, and all of the baggage that goes along with it -- that goes along with the realization that you’re too young to feel like your life is over, too young to clench your fists real tight and wonder if your lifelong dream was always gonna be nothing more than a fantasy. All because your genetics decided to turn right around and bite you in the ass. 

Jack’s never been much of a talker and he’s done more than enough baring his soul to last anyone a lifetime. He thinks maybe he can be forgiven for keeping his secrets, for now.

.

There’s a comfortable internal tilt to arriving home, to that moment when all of a sudden, a switch gets flipped and everyone around you is speaking the language that trips easiest off your tongue, and it’s a little like shrugging on a favorite familiar sweater, or easing into that one comfortable routine that you didn’t even realize you were missing.

His mother is waiting for him at baggage claim, enveloping him in a hug that’s equal parts warmth and perfume, a sensory overload that can make him just this side of jittery but today, calms him right down, chasing away the anxiety that’s been scratching at the edges of his consciousness. 

They’re home before he knows it, his duffle abandoned on top of the dining room table while he moves around his mother in the kitchen, pulling ingredients out of the fridge as she sets about making dinner. 

“Well, this is new,” Maman teases, pulling a knife out of the drawer and placing an onion on the chopping board. “Did I bring home the right son?” 

Jack shrugs. “Took that class, remember? Women, Food, and American Culture. I had to do some baking for the final.” He pauses, feeling the back of his neck heat up. “Bitty...uh, you know, Bittle? He was in the class with me, he’s, uh….he’s good at this sort of thing. He helped a lot.” 

“Bittle? Would that be a Mister Eric Bittle, then?” Maman asks, and Jack knows he’s not imagining the arch tone in her voice. “Your father’s mentioned him a couple of times. He says you two play well together.” 

Jack coughs self-consciously. “Yeah, well, you know. He’s in the Haus this year and all. We’re around each other a lot, now.” 

It’s gotten a little out of control, how he feels about Bitty. Simple attraction, he can shake off; he had a thing for Shitty for about five seconds during their frog year, back when the warm, bright camaraderie Shitty doles out without a second thought had been so new and surprising that Jack couldn’t help but bask in it. That was easy enough to get over; somehow, this thing with Bitty….just isn’t. It’s growing into something with possibilities, into something that’s got Jack thinking that it could be real, if only Jack would let it get there. 

Whatever it is, though, he’s not ready to put words to it just yet. It doesn’t help that they’ve barely spoken since the EpiKegster, creating a space in Jack’s mind that he can’t help but worry at. 

Maman hums, but otherwise makes no other gesture to show that she’s noticed his blush. “Sounds like a nice boy.” 

Jack rolls his eyes, moving to rinse and peel the carrots. “Yes, Maman.” 

They work together in silence for several minutes, side by side in a steady rhythm. Jack’s half way through peeling the last carrot when he says, too casually, “I made an appointment to see Doctor Levesque tomorrow.” 

His mother’s steady chopping stills; it’s the only sign he has that she even heard him in the first place. Two years ago, though, she might’ve thrown down her knife and asked to know what was wrong outright. Today, she just resumes her chopping, and it’s as good a sign as any of how hard all three of them have been trying. 

“Did something happen?” 

“No,” Jack says, too quickly. “Well -- uh. Yes. Parse showed up. At Samwell.” 

“And what did he want?” Maman asks, voice tight. 

Jack exhales, only just now realizing that he’s had a death grip on the edge of the countertop for the past minute. “He wants me to join the Aces.” 

“He wants you to go to Las Vegas? _You_?” Maman shakes her head, one hand flying up to cover her mouth like the very act of it could take the words back. “I don’t --- I don’t want you to think that I don’t trust you, Jack…” 

“Maman,” Jack interrupts gently, “I know. Trust me, I know.” After all, it’s nothing that he hasn’t already said to himself, several times over -- Kent Parson aside, there’s a whole lot of ways that he could fuck himself up in Las Vegas. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s occurred to him that if he _had_ gone first in the draft, he might never have made it to twenty, let alone twenty-four. 

Jack clears his throat. “You know me, eh? If they don’t get a real winter, they have no business having a hockey team, remember?” 

Maman laughs, and if it comes out a little watery, neither of them are going to comment on it. “That’s my boy.” 

She nudges him in the side with her elbow. “Alright, you’ve helped enough. Go unpack and hopefully I’ll have this finished before your father shows up to try and help.” 

They share twin grimaces; Bob Zimmermann’s idea of cooking is to add in more garlic than any one person should ingest when no one else is looking. 

“Jack,” she says, pausing him with a hand on his arm. “You deserve good things. You know that, right?” 

There’s a line between knowing and understanding, and even when he can see the difference clear as day, even when intellectually, he _knows_ that there are things that he has a right to, convincing himself is always going to be a little bit of a struggle, but. 

“Yes, Maman,” he says. “I know.”

.

Jack throws his dufflebag onto his bed, unzipping it as he goes. When he goes to reach for the sweater that’s been placed on top, there’s an out of place thunking sound that gives him pause.

“What the hell?” Jack mutters to himself, before pushing the sweater aside only to find a tupperware full of sugar cookies sitting right beneath it. He already knows who they’re from but he pries off the lid anyways to get to the note underneath it. 

_I thought maybe you could try eating a little less protein and a little more sugar, Jack._

_Merry Christmas!_

_Take care,_  
Bitty  


Jack sits on the bed, the note clutched tight in one hand. He doesn’t have to look in the mirror to know that he’s smiling bright and hard, and it’s a good thing that no one else is here to see it because the team would never let him live this down. He’d get chirped about it until Graduation Day and then some. 

_You deserve good things. You know that, right?_

Jack huffs a small laugh, digging out his phone to send Bitty a quick text. “When you’re right, you’re right, Maman.”


End file.
